


A Game of Chance

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 10:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6325699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke doesn't know that her favorite internet celebrity and her favorite customer are the same person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Game of Chance

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever start something and then it takes a left turn and ends up where you didn't expect it to? That's what happened here. It happens to me a lot. I like where it ended up though, so there is that!

When Clarke discovers moderndayhomer on tumblr, she doesn’t immediately realize he’s going to become her favorite pseudo-celebrity.

She’s innocently scrolling through her newsfeed, minding her own business, when someone she follows reblogs one of his stories. It’s a modern retelling of a Greek myth, in which Narcissus becomes transfixed with his own selfies and Echo winds up doomed to retweet everything that comes across her feed. His writing style is funny and smart, light hearted and a little bit snarky, every word chosen with precision and the adaptations downright clever. Clarke is captivated.

He’s not super active on Tumblr, posting new works infrequently but regularly enough that he slowly gains recognition. She follows him for years, watches as his fan base grows and he starts expanding into myths from other cultures. She’ll occasionally post some fan art, which he always reblogs, but he does the same for anything and everything his fans make. He seems to be genuinely appreciative, each time finding something to compliment, but it depersonalizes the interaction enough for Clarke that she doesn’t really feel like they’re internet friends.

She doesn’t even really know anything about him, except the rough sketch his bio draws: male, 28, New England, bisexual, prompts welcome. It’s about as devoid of personality as it can be, though she’s followed him for long enough, read enough of his work, that she feels as if she has some sense of who he is. She’s not holding out much hope that they’ll ever become friends, but if they did she thinks they’d get along really well.

She never guesses he might be someone she already knows, much less her favorite customer.

* * *

Clarke met Bellamy on her first night at the bar.

“So you’re the new hire?” He’d asked, sliding onto a stool even though the place was empty enough most of the tables were free. She’d liked the looks of him immediately, the sheer _warmth_ of his smile, his tan skin, his freckles.

“Don’t tell me it’s that obvious. I thought I was doing so well.”

“No worries, I’m just a frequent flyer. And Gina’s… a friend.” Clarke had spent the afternoon getting trained to replace Gina, had liked the curly-haired girl immensely and was sad that she wouldn’t be around to share shifts with.

“You sure about that?” Clarke asked, smirking.

“It’s complicated.”

“I bet I can keep up.”

He’d smiled again at this.

“It feels weird to call her my ex, even though she technically is. But she’s dating another friend of mine now, and they’re really happy together. We all hang out pretty regularly.” He shrugs. “Friend is definitely the right word, I just haven’t had to define how we know each other since we were dating. I fumbled it, didn’t I?”

“I could have dropped the whole thing,” Clarke says. ‘But then I remembered you’re Gina’s friend. From the few hours I spent with her this afternoon I can tell she’d give you a hard time.”

“You’re not wrong,” he grinned. “Most of my friends are the same way, so I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”

And they had. They still do. Bellamy comes in a few times a week, sometimes with a group, sometimes by himself. He knows everyone who works there and seems perfectly content to chat with whoever can spare a moment. He’s continued to be attractive and charming, easy to talk to and quick with a comeback. He’s definitely the most fun part of her job.

Nathan Miller is Clarke’s favorite to work with, partly because he’ll argue about football with her when games run on the flat screens around the bar, and partly because he and Bellamy make bets about absolutely _everything_.

They bet on what customers will order, whether any of their other friends will show up to the bar, how many peanuts their friend Jasper can catch in his mouth in a row. Gina used to keep a running tab of what each of them owes, which Miller hands down to Clarke for safekeeping. Miller bets Bellamy free drinks and Bellamy usually bets time. Once, Miller cashed it in to make Bellamy come with him to his ex’s wedding, and once, he cashed it in to kick Bellamy’s ass at a video game Bellamy flat-out refused to play otherwise, but he almost always uses his winnings to make Bellamy clean up for him at the end of the night.

Clarke doesn’t tell Bellamy or Miller, but she secretly enjoys it when it ends up being just her and Bellamy closing. It’s the only time she gets to hang out with him without the buffer of another, actual friend of his, or other customers, and he tends to relax into the emptiness of the bar. He’s less polished, more himself.

“I don’t even know why you bet on that last game,” Clarke teases him as she wipes the bar. He’s across the room, wiping down the tables and bopping his head to the music issuing from the speakers.

“I really thought that red-headed girl was going to make a comeback.”

“She barely sunk anything!”

“Which I believed was part of a plan to lull her friend into a false sense of security.”

“The only way she could have won is if the other girl had scratched on the eight ball.”

“What can I say? I like to take risks. Besides, this isn’t such a bad way to pay it off.”

“You’re only saying that because you haven’t been on shift for the past six hours.”

“True,” he grants, starting to lift the chairs onto the tables as he makes his way back across the room. She tries not to stare at the flex of his arm muscles when he does that. “Miller always makes the same argument. The whole betting thing was his idea. He started it because he was tired of staying late to clean up.”

“Probably tired of you pestering him for free drinks, too.”

“Definitely that,” he grins. He finishes with the tables and steps just behind her, hand resting lightly on her lower back, so he can grab the broom and dustpan.

“Why did you agree to it?” She asks, trying to focus on the conversation and not shiver at his touch.

“Because I have a competitive streak and not very much self-control,” he smirks. “It’s fun, though. It adds a little spice to my life.”

“That’s why normal people get hobbies.”

“Betting with Miller is a hobby,” he says, defensive. “And I do have other interests. I read, I write, I lift weights with my sister’s boyfriend.” He pauses. “That last one wasn’t my idea, but I enjoy it so I think it counts.”

“I’ll allow it,” Clarke says magnanimously. “You write?”

“Hmm?”

“You listed writing as one of your hobbies.”

“Oh.” She can’t tell, since his back is to her, his face pointed toward the ground in concentration, but he seems a little embarrassed. “Yeah. I try to write every day.”

“What kind of stuff do you write?”

“Fiction, mostly.” He doesn’t elaborate and she turns the faucet off to cross her arms and stare him down until he relents and adds, “I’d like to write historical fiction, but I don’t have enough time for the research legwork that entails, so I usually end up with a modern setting.”

“Trying to write the great American novel?”

“I usually go for short stories. Novella-length at most. But I am working on something bigger.”

“That’s so cool,” Clarke says, sincere in her enthusiasm. He looks up at her, brow furrowed.

“You think so?”

“I do. I have no talent whatsoever with words, so I’ve always admired people who write well.”

“But you’re an artist,” he points out, propping the broom against the counter and climbing back onto what she fondly thinks of as his stool. “That takes way more talent.”

“Just a different kind,” she insists. “It took a lot of practice to learn, a lot of trial and error. I communicate through colors and shape and line, but with writing the audience gets to create their own picture. As a visual person, that’s always why I liked to read.”

“I bet you hate movie adaptations, then,” he says, grinning at her eye roll.

“I have to compartmentalize a lot. Don’t change the subject. I’m trying to pay you a compliment, so say, ‘thank you, Clarke,’ and get back to work.”

“Thank you, Clarke,” he parrots obediently. “But don’t praise my abilities too much until you’ve read something I’ve written. It’s entirely possible I’m not any good.”

“I’d bet on you,” she shrugs, turning around to start taking inventory. When she peeks over her shoulder, he’s sweeping again, but his face holds faint traces of a smile.

* * *

About a week later, Clarke is scrolling down her dashboard when Tumblr’s chat feature notifies her that someone has sent her a message.

 **moderndayhomer:** Hey

 She looks around at her empty apartment, as if someone will show up and explain to her what’s happening, but no one does so she messages him back.

 **griffraff:** Hey?  
Did you mean to message me?

 **moderndayhomer:** Shit  
I didn’t think you’d be online right now  
That wasn’t all I was gonna send  
A follow-up message is in the works  
I should have written it all out first

 **griffraff:** Do you have to write drafts for every conversation you have?

 **moderndayhomer:** No  
Just with people I don’t know  
You’ve been following me long enough to know I’m bad at the internet

Clarke smiles down at her screen. Whenever he makes personal posts (which is rare) or answers asks to help people with mythology-related school questions (which is slightly more often), he tends to come off as an old man who can’t figure out how to blend into internet culture.

 **griffraff:** This is true  
Or was I supposed to pretend I hadn’t noticed?  
Not sure what the etiquette is here

 **moderndayhomer:** Etiquette is overrated

 **griffraff:** You should put that on a t-shirt

 **moderndayhomer:** I’ll take that under advisement  
Okay  
I’m just gonna word vomit real quick

 **griffraff:** Go for it

 **moderndayhomer:** First off I wanted to say thanks for reading  
It’s still kind of weird to think I have fans  
But you’ve been consistently encouraging and that means a lot  
Secondly  
Where do I even start with this  
I have this friend in publishing  
She’s helping me put together an anthology of my one-shots  
I showed her some of your illustrations  
And she loved them obviously  
So she asked if I could get your contact info so she could talk to you about publishing your work in my book

Clarke stares down at the screen in shock. She knows that he’s seen all of her illustrations, at least all the ones she’s uploaded, but she had no idea he’d thought highly enough of them to want to publish them alongside his words.

 **griffraff:** Hell yes  
That’s awesome  
Do you need me to make more?

 **moderndayhomer:** That’s not really my call?  
Which is weird cause it’s my book  
But if you give me your email my friend can answer those questions for you

 **griffraff:** cegriffin@gmail.com  
Seriously this is so cool  
Not just the part about my art either  
Congrats about getting published

 **moderndayhomer:** Thanks  
It’s still pretty surreal  
I’m actually freaking out about it a little

 **griffraff:** How come?

 **moderndayhomer:** No good reason tbh  
Just my personality  
But most of my nightmares are about my friends laughing at my work  
Not in the normal joking way but...  
I’m sure writing is like your art  
It feels like you’re showing people a piece of your soul  
And if they reject it, they’re rejecting you by extension

 **griffraff:** Yeah, I get that a lot  
I don’t have a problem showing most people  
But it’s hard to show my mom sometimes  
Have you somehow tricked your friends into thinking you’re not a giant nerd?

 **moderndayhomer:** No, they know

 **griffraff:** Then I’m pretty sure you’re good  
But if any of them give you crap, send them my way  
I’ll kick their asses

 **moderndayhomer:** Will do

After that, they chat on and off about the publishing process, about how he imagined his characters to look, even about some of the tv shows and other things she reblogs from time to time. It feels validating to know that she was right: they do make pretty good friends.

* * *

Over the next week, whenever it gets slow, Clarke works on sketches of scenes from the works Homer has told her will be going in the anthology.

One night she’s working on a sketch of Arachne hunched over her laptop, furiously weaving intricate code as Athena looks on in envy, when Bellamy arrives. She stuffs her sketchbook under the counter and lets herself get distracted refereeing his bet with Miller. They’re predicting how long it will take for their friend Murphy to finish his beer as he flirts ineffectually with the guy next to him.

Bellamy loses, which Clarke notes has been happening more and more recently as she goes to write it down.

“You’re really in the hole,” she tells him, swiveling the page around so he can see. He barely glances at it, taking a large swig of his beer.

“That’s the way it goes sometimes,” he shrugs. “We go through phases like this where one of us comes out on top for a while. It always evens out in the end.”

Miller gives him an unimpressed look.

“I haven’t had to clean up after my shift in almost a month. You sure this is just an unlucky streak?”

“Like I’d just let you win,” Bellamy scoffs. “Anyway, I think my luck is going to change.” Miller doesn’t seem convinced but doesn’t press the issue.

As has been the norm recently, Bellamy is the one who stays behind to help her close. He locks the door behind the last patron and starts gathering empty glasses as she starts wiping down the tables.

He’s in the middle of a sentence when he breaks off and says, “What’s this?”

Which is a ridiculous question because, as he’s bent to load the dishwasher, the bar is blocking both his face and the object in question.

“What is what?”

“Is this your sketchbook?”

“Probably. I left it back there.”

He straightens and sets it carefully on the bar, wary of sticky spots, like it’s something precious.

“Can I see what you’ve been working on?”

“Sure. There’s a work in progress in the back that I’m actually being commissioned to do.” She’s been inexplicably excited to share her news with him. “It’s an illustration of– well, it’s hard to explain, but it’s going to go in this book that’s getting published.”

“That’s amazing, Clarke. How–”

He breaks off, staring down at the piece with a strange look on his face.

“What?” She asks, coming over to look down at the drawing with him. She doesn’t realize at first just how close she’s standing to him. Not until he shifts slightly toward her.

“Nothing,” he says, his voice off. He’s looking down at her now, a strange sort of scrutiny on his face. “That’s amazing.”

“You said that already,” she teases, bumping him with her hip.

“Yeah. Well. I meant it.”

* * *

Bellamy doesn’t come into the bar for a few nights. When Clarke asks Miller about it, he just shrugs and says that he said something about having work to do.

She continues to talk to Homer online, even getting into some more personal territory (though they still haven’t exchanged names). She even messages with him when things at the bar are slow, and while it’s not a replacement for having Bellamy there to talk to, it’s a nice break from the monotony all the same.

About a week later, when she’s getting ready for her shift at the bar and has just about decided Bellamy is either avoiding her or dead in a ditch, Homer tags her in a post.

 **moderndayhomer:** All Bets are Off  written for @griffraff

It doesn’t say anything else in the description, just his standard character tags, but the fic itself makes Clarke’s heart beat erratically.

The basic plot is that Dionysus owns a bar and is tired of Hermes, renowned trickster, forever trying to scam free drinks off his friend. Knowing that Hermes is a sucker for gambling, Dionysus agrees to give Hermes free drinks only if Hermes earns them by winning various bets. It’s a pretty good system, except that mischievous Hermes wins too often for Dionysus’s liking, so the god of wine hires a bartender who is just Hermes’s type.

She’s– well, Homer describes the bartender to look a lot like Clarke: blonde-haired and blue-eyed, and Hermes totally falls for it, throwing all ensuing bets just so he can stay late and spend time with her.

The fic ends with the Hermes and Dionysus making the ultimate bet. The stakes: free drinks for a lifetime, or never again. The bet: whether or not Hermes will be brave enough confess everything to the bartender.

It’s three times as long as what he can usually crank out in a week, which is, if Clarke is reading it right, probably why she hasn’t seen much of Bellamy.

She rereads it twice and then messages him, saying simply, _I’m not having this conversation on Tumblr, of all places. Come by the bar tonight and we can talk._

He doesn’t message her back, but when she arrives for her shift he’s already sitting at the bar, an untouched beer in front of him, hands clasped nervously in his lap. His head whips toward the door when she opens it and she can’t help the grin that stretches across her face.

“I guess you’re not too pissed, then?” He asks, standing and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Why would I be pissed?” She asks, moving close enough she has to tilt her head up to look at him.

“That I didn’t tell you when I saw your art and realized who you were. Or in the week since.”

“Well, I do know you’re bad at the internet,” she teases, tugging on his arm until he pulls his hand out of his pocket so she can twine her fingers with his. “Besides, you were setting up a grand gesture.”

“I wrote you fan fiction,” he says, staring down at their hands as if he’s not totally sure what’s going on. “As romantic gestures go, that’s pretty lame.”

“You wrote fan fiction about your feelings for me,” Clarke says, tugging on his hand until he looks her in the eye. Hermes’s confession had been about as baldly and openly Bellamy as possible, and she can’t get his words out of her mind. “It wasn’t lame. It was beautiful. My only critique is that you didn’t write an ending.”

“I didn’t want to make presumptions about your reaction,” he admits, a smile tugging at his lips. “I guess I’m still waiting to see how it ends.”

“Let’s find out,” Clarke says, pulling him in and kissing him soundly. He’s startled for a moment, but he catches on quickly, his other hand moving to cradle the back of her head as he deepens the kiss. It’s sweet and heady and probably inappropriate for a public setting but Clarke almost forgets where they are until Miller clears his throat pointedly.

“It’s not like this hasn’t been a long time coming, but could you guys postpone this make out session for just a little bit longer? At least until I’m not around?”

“Sure thing,” Clarke says, pecking Bellamy on the cheek once more for good measure before rounding the counter and smiling widely at her friend. “Did you guys really have a bet on whether he’d make a move?”

“No?” Miller says, looking between her and his friend. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Bellamy says quickly. Miller turns a questioning gaze on Clarke.

“He made a grand gesture and now he’s all embarrassed about it,” she explains.

“Classic Blake,” Miller says, shaking his head fondly. “Can’t ever do things the easy way.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Clarke says, looking pointedly at Bellamy. He sighs and lowers his beer back to the bartop.

“As long as I’m confessing things, I might as well tell you I’ve been losing bets on purpose.”

“I know,” Miller snorts. “I’m not stupid enough or blind enough to have missed that you were trying to score one-on-one time with Clarke.”

“And you just let him do it?” Clarke says, skeptical.

“I was rooting for you guys,” Miller grumbles. And then, because he’s uncomfortable with sincerity, he tells Bellamy, “I bet I could tell you exactly which ones you threw, too.”

“One hour for one drink.”

“You’re on,” Miller says, and starts listing things off. Clarke smiles as she listens to them banter, smiles when Bellamy tells Miller he’ll help Clarke clean up and Miller replies that he’s not wasting his winnings on nights when Clarke is working anymore, smiles when Bellamy follows her home after her shift so they can pick up where they’d left off earlier.

Smiles when Bellamy gets a bunch of messages asking him if he knows his fic isn’t finished yet.

Smiles biggest of all when he finally completes the story. She can’t fairly call what he writes an ending. It’s clear in the way he leaves it mostly open-ended that it’s only the beginning. Clarke couldn’t agree more.


End file.
